Iconic Art Nouveau Chair

Richly carved chair by Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo – considered the first manifestation of the Art Nouveau movement, only one other is known to exist in the United States.

The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art announced the joint purchase of an iconic chair designed by groundbreaking English architect, graphic artist, and craftsman Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo (1851–1942). One of only five chairs in the set known to exist, the Huntington/LACMA piece is one of only two in the United States and is on view in the Design Reform movement rooms of the Huntington Art Gallery. After two years at The Huntington, it will shift to LACMA’s newly reinstalled galleries dedicated to the international Arts and Crafts movement.

Elaborately carved from mahogany with fluid tendrils forming the back, the chair is universally considered the key precursor of the Art Nouveau movement and predates the full emergence of that movement by some 10 years. It is also the last of five known chairs in the set to come on the market. The others are at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the William Morris Collection, London, where there are two chairs; and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

“When this extremely significant piece of revolutionary design linking the social and aesthetic thinking of William Morris with European Art Nouveau became available, we knew we should try to bring it to public view in Southern California,” said John Murdoch, the Hannah and Russel Kully Director of Art Collections at The Huntington. “And the most sensible way to do that was to join forces with LACMA. It simply seems the smartest way to build strength in depth when neighboring institutions collect in the same area.”

The Huntington and LACMA both have internationally significant collections of progressive design of the later 19th and early 20th century.

“The word iconic has been so overused that it takes a work of art like this chair to restore its meaning,” said Wendy Kaplan, department head and curator of decorative art at LACMA. As Kaplan explained, the chair created a sensation when it was presented to the public at the landmark “Inventions Exhibition” in Liverpool in 1885. The British press at the time generated an immediate buzz. Fifteen years later, they were still writing about it: Studio magazine declared in 1899 that its “elaborately fretted back . . . and type of floral form” was the precursor of Art Nouveau. The renowned art historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner included Mackmurdo in his 1936 work Pioneers of Modern Design, which defined the field for generations.

Mackmurdo was both an architect and designer who traveled with John Ruskin, one of the inspirational forces behind the Arts and Crafts movement. By the early 1880s he was a disciple of William Morris and the predominant founder of the Century Guild in 1882, an association of artists and entrepreneurs that attempted to realize the ideals of Morris by bringing the highest levels of artistic creativity to objects for the ordinary home. The chair dates from the very beginning of this enterprise and is one of relatively few pieces to bear the CG stamp.

“It is both a ravishingly beautiful and fascinating object,” said Catherine Hess, chief curator of European art at The Huntington. “This chair represents the first manifestation of a new design movement that emphasized sinuous, organic forms. Amazingly, it dates a full 10 years before this movement, the Art Nouveau, emerged on the European continent. It also provides an extraordinary educational opportunity for all our audiences—including visitors looking to better understand how art movements evolved and why things look the way they do.”

In the Huntington Art Gallery, the work will be displayed in the final room in a series exploring the British Design Reform movement. It will join other influential designs by Charles Robert Ashbee and Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and sculptures by Alfred Stevens, Alfred Gilbert, among others.

The joint ownership is 50-50, with each institution likely to display the works for two years at a turn.

Huntington funds used to purchase the chair came from the Frances Crandall Dyke Bequest and the Schweppe Art Acquisitions Fund. LACMA funds were provided by MaryLou Boone, Max Palevsky, Jodie Evans, and LACMA’s Decorative Arts and Design Council.

The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens is a collections-based research and educational institution serving scholars and the general public. More information about The Huntington can be found online at www.huntington.org. Visitor information The Huntington is located at 1151 Oxford Rd., San Marino, Calif., 12 miles from downtown Los Angeles. It is open to the public Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday from noon to 4:30 p.m.; and Saturday, Sunday, and Monday holidays from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Summer hours (Memorial Day through Labor Day) are 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Closed Tuesdays and major holidays. Admission on weekdays: $15 adults, $12 seniors (65+), $10 students (ages 12–18 or with full-time student I.D.), $6 youth (ages 5–11), free for children under 5. Group rate $11 per person for groups of 15 or more. Members are admitted free. Admission on weekends and Monday holidays: $20 adults, $15 seniors, $10 students, $6 youth, free for children under 5. Group rate $14 per person for groups of 15 or more. Members are admitted free. Admission is free to all visitors on the first Thursday of each month with advance tickets. Information: 626-405-2100 or www.huntington.org.

About LACMA:

Since its inception in 1965, LACMA has been devoted to collecting works of art that span both history and geography—and represent Los Angeles’ uniquely diverse population. Today, the museum features particularly strong collections of Asian, Latin American, European, and American art, as well as a new contemporary museum on its campus, BCAM. With this expanded space for contemporary art, innovative collaborations with artists, and an ongoing transformation project, LACMA is creating a truly modern lens through which to view its rich encyclopedic collection.